<p>Is it worth it to get your PhD in something like computer engineering? Will you still find jobs in businesses or will you be overqualified? I know that most engineers only get their bachelor's degree. My dream is to get my PhD but I don't want to be stuck only teaching at a university.</p>
<p>You don’t need a PHD for 90% of the jobs comp eng get, and that would take you 4 years for the bachelor + 2 years for master + 5 year PHD = about 11 years…</p>
<p>PHD is good if you want to conduct research but not for the job market</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s what I was thinking that you basically either teach or research with a PhD, and many of them become overqualified for the job. Of course the few that get PhDs and are in the job market are pretty happy and get paid a LOT (I know a few). </p>
<p>How about a masters?</p>
<p>I strongly recommend the master degree especially if you get into an accelerated 5 year BS/MS computer engineering program. The MS would only take you an extra year</p>
<p>The problem with that is that the school that I’m being forced to go to by my parents doesn’t have the 5 year BS/MS program. But an extra 2 years for a masters isn’t a problem for me. Would it help me in the job market?</p>
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<p>Actually, it is typically closer to 4 + 2 + 3 or 4, so 9 or 10 total years, not 11. Eleven wouldn’t be unheard of but that is definitely longer than average.</p>
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<p>Overqualified for what job? For jobs typically held by those with just a BS, yes. For pure research positions, a PhD is never overqualified. Typically a PhD is all but a requirement for those jobs to begin with.</p>
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<p>Most seem to be happy, but do not get a PhD for money. Monetarily speaking, stopping at a master’s degree is about the same as going all the way to PhD except for a few lucky ones. Those who do a PhD thinking they are doing it for big bucks are the ones that either (a) burn out of the program, or (b) are sorely disappointed later on down the road. You do a PhD because you love the subject and want to be a researcher in said subject.</p>
<p>Basically, with a PhD, you can go into industry, academia or government labs. All of those positions will be research-centered. In academia, you have the addition of teaching. So the bottom line is that you do a PhD if you want to do research, regardless of whether that is in industry or in academia somewhere. Chances are you won’t have any real clue whether a PhD is right for you until at least your 3rd undergraduate year, and even then a lot of people don’t really know until they are part of the way into their master’s degree.</p>
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On the contrary, I usually find that it’s PhDs that do so.</p>
<p>That being said, in engineering a PhD isn’t too bad. If career advancement is your main concern, you’d be better off stopping with a masters (right after school or after a few years of work, both are fine). PhDs are usually considered to be equivalent to a Masters + 3 years of experience - you’d get that from just working 3 more years, plus a larger salary. If you want to work on research, on the other hand, a PhD is legitimately worth it. Unlike in science, there is not a massive oversupply of PhDs.</p>
<p>Of course, like someone else said above, I wouldn’t know for sure whether I want to get my PhD until I have some college experience. And believe me, I don’t want to do it for money. If I did, I wouldn’t be asking this question. What it seems like I want to do for now is that I don’t really want to just do research. If you get your PhDs, are you just limited to research? That’s what it seems you’re getting at. Are there any PhDs that don’t do research?</p>
<p>There is absolutely no point unless you want to do research. A PhD is a research degree.</p>
<p>Many PhDs will eventually move into management style roles after being researchers out in industry for a while. Some will stick with research oriented jobs for the whole career, but others wind up doing technical management or consulting.</p>
<p>It’s very unlikely a private company will pay you more for having a PhD unless you have specialized knowledge that directly applies to the company’s bottom line. With a few exceptions like Google, Apple and some start-ups, software and hardware companies won’t try to monetize bleeding-edge computer science research. It’s too hard to get it to pay off.</p>
<p>Among the PhDs I’ve worked with in private companies, none have expressed regret that they got their degrees, but many of them have commented that as a purely financial decision, it doesn’t pay off.</p>
<p>You have to be certain to achieve past your “problem” at hand…which is that you are at a school that you don’t want to be at, but that your parents “forced” you to go to. In this situation your grades may suffer if it is not a school that is a good fit for you…and, as a result, you may have a harder time getting into any Masters or PhD program of your choice if you have less than a stellar GPA. You need to “get over” the issue that your parents forced you to go to a specific school and embrace whatever school you are at, your own choice or the one you “allowed” your parents to force you to go, and own the experience wherever you are. Once you embrace where you are, you will excel and will have more opportunities and more choices of grad schools to choose from.</p>
<p>RacinReaver- Thanks for bringing up the management point of view! I never thought of that. It is definitely something to think about.</p>
<p>simba9- That makes sense, but from what I’ve heard, a lot of private companies won’t hire you in general because you will be too overqualified (since they don’t want to pay you more). Do you know anything about that?</p>
<p>SLOHappy- That is definitely something I will try to work on. It isn’t that I hate the school. I will do dual enrollement there whether my parents want me to or not (basically, it will be my decision). The only way I would want to go to another school would be if I got accepted into a prestigious college, and one that my parents could afford since they are paying for tuition. --By the way, I am not in college yet. I’m still in high school.-- Also, there really is no “allowing” my parents to force me to go anywhere. They are not American by blood and still follow their culture (as do I, but not as much as them). In our culture, whether we become 18 or not, we still have to listen to them as if we were a minor…</p>
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<p>Stop using “overqualified” without some qualifier. You can’t be overqualified in a general sense; you can only be overqualified for specific jobs. What you should be asking is “What do I want to do for a living?” followed by “Does that require a PhD?” If it does, ten get one. A PhD will never leave you overqualified for a job that requires a PhD. You will only be overqualified for the BS-level jobs that you didn’t want anyway.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you ask yourself those questions in reverse order, then is when you may run into problems of it turns out the job you want doesn’t require a PhD. What a PhD overqualifies you for is jobs that don’t require or prefer a candidate with a PhD.</p>
<p>That makes sense. So PhDs generally teach, university level, and do research. This may seem like a dumb question, but then what exactly would a BS do?</p>
<p>I’m biased in my description of it, but most of them seem to solve all or part of various engineering problems for real applications and products, often as part of a team and usually using existing methods and tools.</p>
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<p>It’s hard to justify the opportunity cost of getting a PhD unless you want to teach at a university. Those with a BS/MS go into industry and either stay in engineering or move to management/marketing/etc.</p>
<p>So BSs seem to solve problems with existing solutions, PhDs do research–> does that mean that basically PhDs also solve problems but ones without solutions…? (unless the teach)</p>
<p>@tt6238 </p>
<p>“The problem with that is that the school that I’m being forced to go to by my parents doesn’t have the 5 year BS/MS program.”</p>
<p>This problem always comes up on these boards and I’m always confused. Is there more to the story, like it’s the only in-state school with an ENGR program, or are your parents like movie characters who will only pay if you go to their alma mater or what?</p>
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<p>No, it’s perfectly easy to justify it to do research in industry, academia or national labs. That’s in addition to teaching. The bottom line is that if the job you want needs a PhD, that’s all you need to justify getting one.</p>
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<p>Sort of. Professors who teach do research as well, and they generally solve currently in solved problems or develop the tools that can. The same goes for researchers in industry and national labs, only they don’t do teaching in addition.</p>
<p>I’m not saying there are no BS engineers developing new tools and methods or PhD engineers using old methods. There is definitely some crossover. That is just a general trend. It seems like most BS engineers start out that way an do one of two things: move into management or else go back and get a graduate degree before getting to the point where they have the experience necessary to be developing those tools.</p>
<p>Again, there are always exceptions, but these trends seem to be generally true.</p>